Sen. Steve Erdman

District 47

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Scott Frost, the Huskers new Head Football Coach, has made an important new hire. Frost has re-hired Nebraska’s former Wide Receivers’ Coach, Ron Brown, to be the Huskers new Director of Player Development. Frost doesn’t want to just win football games, he also wants to build character within his football players similar to the way Coach Tom Osborne did back in the 1990’s. In other words, Scott Frost wants to make Husker football great again!

Ron Brown is a man who has never shied away from his religious views both on and off the field. In fact, when the story of Jerry Sandusky’s sex abuse scandal with young boys broke at Penn State University and long-time Head Coach, Joe Paterno, was fired, Brown was there at the next football game on November 12, 2011 to unite the players of both teams on the field, leading them through a time of repentance, healing and prayer.

However, Brown has also become a controversial figure due to certain religious statements he has made about homosexuality in the past. In short, Brown believes that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior as sinful. Brown’s most controversial statements came back in 2012 when he testified before Omaha’s City Council, urging them against adopting a new city ordinance aimed at protecting LGBTQ individuals in the workplace. Brown told the Omaha City Council members that day: “If you don’t have a personal relationship with the Lord through Christ…you’ll be held to great accountability for the decision you’re making.”

Since the announcement that Brown would be joining the team, social justice warriors from the Left have begun crying ‘foul’ and calling for his dismissal before he has even had time to unpack his bags. Such was the case with Sally J. Herrin, a resident of Lincoln, who called Brown’s brand of Christianity “poison” and asserted that Brown’s hiring defies UNL’s values in an opinion letter she submitted to the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper, and Joe Shaw, chairman of the Nebraska Democrat Party’s LGBTQIA caucus, who told the Lincoln Journal Star that he and his caucus would “…hold the athletic department and the university accountable to the promise of promoting diversity and inclusion.” Apparently, diversity and inclusion does not include conservative Christians who believe that the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong.

Instead of rushing to judgment, we should remember that Brown has gone on record before as saying, “I have and will embrace every player I coach gay or straight.” He has never called for the dismissal of any player based upon that player’s sexual preferences or orientation. In fact, when Eric Leushen, Nebraska’s first openly gay football player, was asked if Brown had ever treated him with disrespect or animosity, he responded by saying, “No.” So, there simply is no evidence to suggest that Brown has ever discriminated against any player because of his sexual preferences or orientation.

But, this lack of evidence has not stopped these social justice warriors of the Left from openly discriminating against Brown by calling for his dismissal. To be sure, what they are asking the athletic department and the university to do is nothing short of religious bigotry and Christian persecution. Whether these social justice warriors from the Left realize it or not, our Founding Fathers recognized that all human beings have an inherent right to worship God freely according to the dictates of their own consciences, and they valued this concept of religious liberty so highly that they embedded it as a fundamental right in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. So, contrary to the opinion of Sally J. Herrin, the hiring of Ron Brown not only reflects what should be the values of the athletic department and the university, it also reflects one of the most important and sacred American values of all.